You can thank Andre Cymone’s kids for “The Stone,” his first album in 29 years.

“My three young children very much pushed me,” Cymone said in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles. “They had me play television themes for them on my guitar, like ‘Scooby Doo’ and ‘Batman.’ Then they asked for the theme for ‘King Kong.’ He doesn’t have a theme song, so I made one up. They kept asking me to make up songs and I wound up playing and singing a lot, which is something I’d never done on an acoustic guitar. It opened something that was dormant in me.”

That playtime with his children eventually led to Cymone’s return to music. He plays 7th Street Entry Sunday in support of “The Stone,” which he self-released in February.

Cymone’s own childhood wasn’t so playful. “I was from the wrong side of the tracks,” he said about growing up in Minneapolis. As a teen, he befriended another musician by the name of Prince Rogers Nelson, who ended up moving in with Cymone’s family after running away from his own home. While attending Minneapolis’ Central High School, the pair started the band Grand Central together. Prince ended up signing a deal with Warner Bros., and Cymone played bass in his touring band. But tensions between the two, coupled with Cymone’s desire for his own career, caused him to leave Prince’s side in 1981.

A trio of Cymone solo albums — which dove heavily into new wave — followed and by the third one, 1985’s “AC,” he had made up with Prince, who wrote and co-produced Cymone’s biggest hit single, “The Dance Electric.”

But Cymone put his career on hold soon after. He moved to Los Angeles and began producing other acts, including Tom Jones, Adam Ant and Jody Watley. With Watley, the partnership extended beyond the studio after the pair married. (They had two children together, but divorced in 1995.)

The 2003 death of Cymone’s mother, Bernadette, brought Prince back into his life.

“It’s kind of a cool thing,” Cymone said. “It’s been almost uncanny that whenever I’m going through something really heavy, that brother will show up out of the blue. We have some sort of an inner bond. When my mom was in the hospital, she wanted to have a little party so she sent me to Broadway Pizza. I come back with 10 pizzas or something like that and who do I see in the elevator but Prince. I said, ‘Here, you better take some of this pizza.’ My mom was so happy to see us back together, I still remember the look on her face when we walked into her room.”

His mother’s death also ultimately influenced “The Stone.”

“She gave me some parting advice, maybe two days before she died,” Cymone said. “She said, ‘Listen, you need to follow your heart. I’m not going to be around to help you anymore. You’ve got to follow your heart. It’s all right there.’ Ever since then, that’s exactly what I’ve done.”

The music on “The Stone” sounds little like Cymone’s ’80s material, a time he said he was trying to be “Mr. Spaceman or Mr. Electronic.” Instead, Cymone turned to the music of his youth for influence, specifically the records passed down to him from his older siblings. “I’m the youngest of six kids, and this was the one time the trickle-down effect really worked. Remember the Association? I loved that group. Eric Burdon, a lot of those British groups, obviously the Beatles. My sisters got me into Motown, one of my brothers was into hardcore funk and the other came from a totally different place and listened to Bob Dylan, Laura Nyro and Joan Baez.”

Cymone also said he hopes “The Stone” allows him to restart his career on the album’s merits.

“The Minneapolis Sound was great at the time, believe me. I’m glad to have played whatever part people give me credit for, or don’t give me credit for, or whatever. I took a lot of time off to clear the air, musically, and to reboot. Now feels like a great time for me to do my own thing.”

A Minnesota native, Ross Raihala joined the Pioneer Press as pop music critic in 2004, after stints at The Forum in Fargo, N.D., and The Olympian in Olympia, Wash. He covers local and national music as well as some theater and other arts and entertainment topics. His favorite part of his job is reviewing, and live tweeting, Twin Cities arena concerts. And, yes, he saw the same show you did.

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